This year marks the 97th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919, an occasion celebrated in both Koreas, though to different degrees, as a testament to the yearning for freedom from Japanese colonial rule.

In South Korea every year solemn observances and colorfully-staged, dramatic re-enactments around the country simulate the nationwide eruption of demonstrations back in 1919.

As it turned out, March 1 might have been the last such moment of great unity, as there would not be another event bringing together Koreans from all across the peninsula for a single cause. For various reasons Koreans under colonial rule did not, or could not, organize another concerted action for independence, and as we know the liberation of 1945 was immediately followed by Korea's permanent division.

March 1 did not result immediately in Korea's independence, but when viewed over the longer term, its historical significance was wide-ranging and monumental, especially in facilitating Koreans' central role in forging their own modern history.

First, March 1 showed the outcome of several decades of schooling and civic discourse concerning enlightenment and social reform, which heightened the sense of national unity as well as the thirst for independence.

Throughout the modern world, often it took a common threat or domination by an external force to spark or intensify a sense of national identity, and Korea was no different. It came too late to prevent colonization, but March 1 showed that Koreans had developed a strong collective consciousness and will.

Inspired by the March 1 movement, this resolve was demonstrated within a month after the uprising, as independence activists gathered in Shanghai in April of 1919 to form the first government in exile, which significantly took the form of a republic, not a monarchy. Alas, this unity among the participants did not last long, as soon the independence movement split into disparate groups following competing ideologies and scattered in various locales, from China to Manchuria and even the United States.

These independent independence movements, however, would eventually cultivate the major political leaders, from Kim Il-sung to Kim Ku and Syngman Rhee, who would take command over Korea's future course by the middle of the 20th century.

None of them played a decisive role in bringing about liberation, but their efforts in organizing anti-Japanese resistance efforts from their far-flung bases outside the peninsula were enough to endow them with the stamp of nationalist legitimacy.

In this sense, they were all the children of March 1, and in fact the South Korean state, led by Rhee upon its founding in 1948, explicitly pointed to March 1 and the Shanghai Provisional Government of 1919 as the foundational basis of its existence. And every ruling system in both Koreas thereafter would celebrate the spirit of March 1 as an exemplary demonstration of patriotic fervor that laid the groundwork for independence.

There was another way that March 1 had a major historical impact, however, beyond sparking the independence movements and the spirit of resistance. The demonstrations, which began with the reading of the March 1 Declaration of Independence as people gathered in Seoul to attend the funeral of the former Korean monarch, Gojong, induced a severely violent response from the authorities, but eventually, also a major turn in colonial rule.

The March 1 movement represented the explosion of discontent over the first decade of Japanese rule, which had been dominated by concerns over security (stamping out armed and other resistance) and therefore imposed all kinds of restrictions on Koreans' lives. Still, the Japanese rulers were shocked by the scale and scope of the unrest once it began, and this contributed to the terrible violence that met the demonstrators.

But the lessons from both the protests and their botched suppression fell on receptive ears amid a liberalizing political atmosphere back in Japan. What resulted was a new colonial administration installed in the fall of 1919, which declared the overarching policy of "cultural rule" that valued "harmony of Japan and Korea" as the centerpiece of colonial administration.

This did not mean, of course, that Korea would be granted independence, but it did lead to reforms that, taken together, probably had the effect of actually strengthening Japanese rule. The period of "cultural rule" maintained the larger mechanisms of authoritarian control, such as censorship and restrictions on political activity by organizations such as the communist party, and the regime continued to rely on ethnic discrimination and segregation to maintain the colonial system.

But Koreans were now able to participate much more freely in publishing, religion, business, and other social realms, and what resulted was an explosion in associational activity, as people joined organizations dedicated to all kinds of cultural, intellectual, and economic endeavors. In the countryside, life continued largely as before, but the rapidly growing urban areas displayed the transformation of Korean society into a noticeably different, modern way of life.

"Cultural rule," the direct product of March 1, continued into the 1930s until it was overwhelmed by the total mobilization for Japan's pursuit of the Pacific War, the excesses of which would forever mark how Koreans remembered the colonial period as a whole.

In the end, one can debate whether the reforms of the 1920s signaled a "successful" outcome of March 1. But the major changes that followed the uprising represented another example of Koreans directly shaping their modern existence, and for that, March 1 should indeed be celebrated.

Kyung Moon Hwang is professor in the Departments of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Southern California. He is the author of "A History of Korea ― An Episodic Narrative" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). The Korean translation was published as 황경문, "맥락으로 읽는 새로운 한국사" (21세기 북스, 2011).